Some of the excesses of Catholic spirituality -- veneration of statues and feasts that celebrate primarily a European notion of sainthood (brave men and docile women) -- have left our branch of the church unsure about any theology of the saints. “Saint” has become a rather derisive word, describing a person a bit too removed from the ordinary concourse of life. But that is hardly fair.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, there are frequent references to the forebears in faith who have marked out the pathway. Although not a people in the same sense that the Jewish people are, Christians drew upon the biblical theme of the holy people who participate in God’s holiness to articulate their own sense of identity.
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